Johnny Cash - My Mother's Hymn Book
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Free Music Notes for My Mother's Hymn Book
Free Music Review: The gospel as sung by someone who BELIEVES it
Hit: 4 Stars
It will be difficult for modern "country" fans to believe but there was a time when it was not uncommon (indeed, it was almost EXPECTED) that major country stars would also record gospel music. Some of those were mere exercises in cynical commerce...the labels knew that "God songs" sold to a certain segment of country fans. Then there were those who recorded gospel music because they WANTED to.
Cash was in that 2nd category. In fact when he left Sun Records for Columbia, one of the provisos in the new contract was that Cash would be able to record the hymns he loved, having grown up hearing his mother sing them (and the congregation..Cash once said the music was the ONLY thing he loved about church growing up.)
After surviving bouts of addiction to pills, Cash found renewed faith in the God his mother loved and these songs were hand-picked from an old,tattered hymnal that used to belong to her. It is these songs that sustained Cash through tough times in his life and to which he clung as he entered what he no doubt knew would be his final years.
These had been some of Cash's last recordings but weren't issued until after his death. This disc can also be found as part of the UNEARTHED box set of Cash's latter day work for Rock Rubin's American Records.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Cash finds an anchor in the wandering orphan theme of "I am a Pilgrim" ("I am a pilgrim and a stranger/Travelling through this wearisome land/I've got a home in that yonder city, oh Lord, and it's not..not made by hands") "When the Roll is Called up Yonder" is Cash's love letter to his dead brother Jack...killed in a sawmill accident when he was 12. It was sung at Jack's funeral and remained a favourite of Cash's. "When He Reached Down" is one of those 'shaggy dog' gospel songs that Cash seems to be most attuned to. ("I was lost and undone without God or His Son/when He reached down His hand to me") The last 2 songs here seem to be his final words. In "Softly and Tenderly" he makes a last plea to his non-believing fans to listen as Christ calls "come home, ye who are weary, come home..." and then makes his own last entreaty to Jesus in "Just as I Am".
LOWS:
"Do Lord" seems oddly detached for a song that's typically celebratory. It's not one of the better performances here.
BOTTOM LINE:
Hear the difference it makes to hear gospel sung by someone who believes in what he's singing. To fully experience the power of these songs, reconsider the message in the lyric and the Christ it offers. You can't sing with conviction of the "Sweet By and By" until you're convinced of its reality and your certain destiny there. There are other collections of Johnny singing gospel but there's a special quality to these imbued by the fact that Cash knew he was "bound for the Promised Land" sooner rather than later.
Free Music Review: Stark simplicity, sincerity and sacredness...
Hit: 4 Stars
The 15 songs selected by Johnny not that long before his death all came literally from his mom's favorite hymnal. That is the weakness of the effort, to me, because of a certain lack of variety in content. I agree also with an earlier reviewer who noted that Johnny's guitar work was too subdued here. (Perhaps in his illness, his pickin' suffered more than his vocalizing. While not as strong a voice as he showed on his 1993 American Recordings debut, it really is better than I expected.) Johnny does have some uptempo selections here, and they are the best on the disc. However, in his "Personal File" double-CD set recently released on Sony/Legacy, you get a whole disc of acoustic hymns and spirituals sung in Johnny's 1970's voice. That CD, overall, is much more compelling than this one. True fans will demand to own both, of course. In the "Personal File" effort, you also get a disc of Johnny singing traditional country songs, along with some self-penned tracks and a few 1970's era songs by other artists like Johnny Horton, John Prine and Carlene Carter. The cost of the two CD's of "Personal File" is just a tiny bit more than what you'll pay for "My Mother's Hymn Book" so I highly recommend making that purchase first. His religious disc from "Personal File" has hardly been out of my car CD player since I got it five or six weeks ago, and yet I am not a very religious person. They just grab you. So does "My Mother's Hymn Book" but not as powerfully.Free Music Review: Great album
Hit: 4 Stars
I bought this as a gift for my mother and she loves the old hymns. If you do not like Johnny Cash you will not like this album. I know self proclaimed atheists who own and love this album.Free Music Review: Frankly, I expected more...
Hit: 3 Stars
I am a huge fan of hymns. And after watching "Walk the Line" and reading about Johnny Cash immediately thereafter, I am a huge fan of the Man in Black. And this album was a disappointment to me.
To be sure, there is something beautiful and pure about this recording. On a strictly emotional level, it is wonderful to hear this dying man, with such an excruciating life journey that had come to such a rich spiritual conclusion, singing the hymns of his youth. The authenticity in his voice is refreshing.
However, I fault this album on two levels. First, the balance between his voice and his guitar was askew, pushing the guitar so far in the background as to almost be irrelevant. I appreciate simplicity, but this album almost sounds a cappella at parts.
My other significant critique is Cash's voice at this point in his life. Of course, any man his age would have similar vocal limitations. I cannot fault him on a personal level. It just makes the album less appealing to the listener. Though his heart would have been at such a different place, I can only imagine how much better it would sound to have heard him sing these songs twenty or thirty years ago.
In any case, it's an album worth hearing. For spiritual reasons, I'm glad that I did. However, the musical problems will prevent it from becoming a regular part of my listening library.
Free Music Review: His guitar is opaque
Hit: 2 Stars
The sound of Johnny's guitar, which is his signature, is not heard, the music background is not lucid.